Colorado State has designated its Saturday night men’s basketball game against San Diego State as CSU’s fifth-annual “White Out” game at Moby Arena in Fort Collins.

Spectators are encouraged to wear white for the 8 p.m. Mountain West Conference battle.

Although neither Colorado State (17-2, 4-2 Mountain West) nor San State (14-4, 4-1) is ranked in the two major top-25 polls, but received the most votes among the league’s teams.

If the polls were extended, San Diego State would be ranked the equivalent of 26th in USA Today coaches poll and No. 28 in the Associated Press media poll. CSU would be 29th by the coaches and No. 33 by the media.

Wyoming (16-3, 5-1) tops the Mountain West standings but received fewer votes in this week’s polls.

Wyoming and CSU do not have midweek games this week. San Diego State plays Tuesday night at Air Force. Wyoming hosts New Mexico on Saturday.

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Colorado State women’s soccer coach Bill Hempen is set to begin his second season with the Rams. (Photo courtesy of Dan Byers)

Bill Hempen laughed as he recalled a memory of his first season as the head coach of Colorado State’s brand new women’s soccer program.

“We were handing out name tags at the first practice,” Hempen said. “We didn’t know anybody.”

When Hempen was hired by CSU in February 2013, he was racing the clock. He was given five months to build the program from scratch and have it ready to play that fall, a giant undertaking that included warp-speed recruiting, scheduling and promoting.

“I said, ‘If you agree to do that, you are more crazy than I thought,'” said Jeff Hooker, the University of Denver coach and a close friend of Hempen. “I told him to be prepared to be as frustrated as you’ve ever been in your years of coaching.”

John C. “Jack” Graham listens while CSU president Tony Frank, left, addresses the media during a press conference introducing him as athletic director on Dec. 1, 2011. Graham was fired Friday for what Frank cited as differences of opinion. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

Today, Colorado State University informed me of its decision to terminate my contract as Director of Athletics. This announcement is surprising and deeply disappointing to me. I will personally miss the opportunity to continue to build on what we have accomplished during the past two and a half years.

We have taken significant steps to enhance Colorado State University’s Athletics program:

Nine new outstanding Head Coaches have been hired — all with the potential to deliver meaningful results for our student athletes’ and University’s success.

The contracts for our four most prominent sports — football, men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball — have all been extended for close to a decade with significant break-up fees. This has secured our future of great leadership and coaching and mitigates the “stepping stone” dynamic that has prevailed at CSU.

The administrative staff in the Department has been greatly enhanced by hiring many senior and accomplished executives. Our Department of Athletics is in very good hands.

We have ignited RAM Nation with new enthusiasm for an Athletic Department that “thinks big, works hard and settles for nothing less than excellence” and that “Does it All”: recruits people of great character; requires and supports student-athletes to succeed academically; and delivers results on the field of competition.

We’ve raised our expectations of student-athlete conduct. We have accomplished a behavioral-incident rate below that of the general student population — a significant decline since the time I joined CSU.

My story on Colorado State softball is in the Friday paper and online here.

I enjoyed checking in with the program on Wednesday, attending the Rams’ victory over New Mexico at Ram Field adjacent to Moby Arena, and had considerable leftover material after filing the story about the Mountain West Conference’s co-leaders.

Fourth-year Jen Fisher is a Rocky Mountain High graduate and played collegiately at Creighton and Colorado School of Mines before finishing up her degree work at CSU, where her father, Wayne Schubert, is a long-time atmospheric sciences professor.

Her stint at Metro State involved shepherding a startup program to Division II prominence, and now she’s doing similar things at CSU.

FORT COLLINS — Colorado State men’s basketball coach Larry Eustachy said San Diego State’s Xavier Thames is the odds-on favorite for the top player in the Mountain West after the senior guard score 23 points Wednesday night in the Aztecs’ 71-61 win at CSU’s Moby Arena.

During a critical stretch in the second half, 10 straight Aztecs points were scored by the 6-foot-3 Thames.

He entered the game averaging 15.6 points and is the primary ballhandler for a starting lineup that includes four players 6-7 or taller. San Diego State (11-1, 1-0 Mountain West) is ranked No. 21 in the Associated Press poll.

FORT COLLINS — Colorado State’s leading scorer, junior forward J.J. Avila, suffered a back injury Monday during practice and had to be wheeled off the court.

CSU coach Larry Eustachy said it is too early to guess whether Avila will be available for the Rams (9-4) in their conference opener Wednesday night against No. 21 San Diego State (10-1) at Moby Arena.

The best-case scenario, Eustachy said, would be that Avila is suffering from back spasms.

Kapri Bibbs of Colorado State University controls the ball against University of Nevada at Hughes Stadium. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

Here’s another weekly installment of “10 things you may not know” — about Colorado State at New Mexico.

As usual, special thanks to the sports information departments of the respective schools.

1. This is the final home game of the season for New Mexico, which stands 2-3 in homes games with victories over New Mexico State (66-17) and Air Force (45-37 last week). The Lobos complete their 2013 schedule with road games against arguably the top two teams in the Mountain West Conference: at Fresno State and at Boise State. Eighteen UNM seniors will play their final home game Saturday, including nine starters. They will be recognized with pregame introductions.

2. New Mexico typically does not beat itself. The Lobos are plus-1 in turnover margin for the season and are tied for third nationally in fewest penalty yards per game (29.1).

3. Colorado State leads the series 35-25 and holds an 18-14 advantage over the Lobos in games played in Albuquerque. Since 1989, the Rams have a 15-7 advantage in the series and have won the past three meetings.

4. CSU is coming off consecutive road victories, over Wyoming and Hawaii. The last time the Rams won three in a row away from Fort Collins was 2002 (Utah, Air Force and San Diego State).

AirForce quarterback Nate Romine passes to running back Anthony LaCoste, during the second half of an NCAA college football game against San Diego State, at the AirForce Academy, Colo. Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013. San Diego State won 27-20. (Brennan Linsley, AP)

Check out our live blog with reporters from The Denver Post and other media outlets covering the college football game between Notre Dame and Air Force.

San Diego State defensive back King Holder, left, stops Oregon State wide receiver Brandin Cooks from gaining a first down in the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013, in San Diego, Calif. (Alex Gallardo, AP)

BOULDER — If Colorado can ever reschedule its 12th game, it likely will need help from the NCAA, a school athletic department official said Tuesday.

Jim Senter, associate athletic director in charge of football, said the biggest problem is teams already have 12 games on their schedule. Fresno State, which had its Sept. 14 game at Colorado cancelled by the flood, has a similar problem.

“More than likely whoever we get to play, we’ll likely have to petition the NCAA to have a 13th game (for the other team),” Senter said. “Basically, the NCAA understands Colorado is having a hardship, Fresno State’s having a hardship and they need to have 12 games.”

Athletic director Rick George was in Dallas attending the Division IA Athletic Directors Association meetings and has surely talked to nearly every AD in the hotel.

BOULDER — Colorado athletic director Rick George is still scrambling to find a 12th game to replace the cancelled Sept. 14 game against Fresno State, but coach Mike MacIntyre knows who he does not want to play.

San Jose State. The Spartans, along with San Diego State, could logistically play in Boulder as they have the same Oct. 19 open date as Colorado. Besides the fact that the Spartans don’t have another bye week the rest of the year, MacIntyre does not want to play the team he coached from 2010-12.

“No, we will not play San Jose State,” MacIntyre said at Tuesday’s weekly press luncheon. “I don’t want to go up against young men that I care deeply about. I don’t think that would be the right thing to do.”

BOULDER — Fresno State’s 41-40 win over Boise State Friday night made the Bulldogs the only unbeaten or unranked team in the Mountain West. It gives them an even bigger inside edge on the league title game Dec. 7. That means that potential makeup date for the flood-postponed Sept. 14 game at Colorado is all but extinguished.

Colorado still has an open date Oct. 19. New athletic director Rick George has to scramble in a hurry to find a 12th game. At least he’s in the right place. He’s attending the Division 1A Athletic Directors Association annual meeting Monday and Tuesday in Dallas.

He’ll surely talk to San Jose State AD Gene Bleymaier and San Diego State’s Jim Sterk. They also have byes Oct. 19 and play at Hawaii, giving them an automatic waiver to play a 13th game.

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FORT COLLINS — Colorado State senior linebacker Shaquil Barrett was named Mountain West Conference special-teams player of the week Monday.

Barrett blocked two field goals in Saturday’s 34-17 victory over Cal Poly — the first blocked field goals by CSU since Oc7. 29, 2011 at UNLV.

“We talk about being proud of your (game) film,” CSU coach Jim McElwain said Monday. “Shaq is a guy that, when you put on the film, he can be proud of his effort. Teammates can see that. He’s a guy who plays his tail off.”

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BOULDER — Colorado leads the country in one category. Its star receiver, junior Paul Richardson, leads the nation after one game with his 208 yards receiving in Sunday’s 41-27 win over Colorado State. Second is Alabama-Birmingham’s Jamarcus Nelson who had 199.

Also, Will Oliver is one of three players along with San Diego State’s Wes Feer and North Carolina State’s Niklas Sade to kick four field goals.

Connor Wood is seventh nationally with 400 yards passing. First is Fresno State’s Derek Carr who had 456 and visits Colorado Sept. 14.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.